Dining reservations

[labonnevie]

3 hours ago, Mike Moore said:

Unfortunately 8pm ET would occasionally interfer with the time that our reservations system gets taken offline for maintenance. So for those cruises, guests would log-on eagerly anticipating being able to make their reservations, only to be told that they couldn't.  

That happened to me this Saturday. No big deal, I just came back three hours later. 
I hope Regent realizes that 7 am is 4 am in the west!

That is frankly unacceptable! Regent has a lot of customers in our time zone. 
A far better solution, and a better customer oriented one, would be to have the Regent IT people do their thing starting at midnight eastern time. 

[labonnevie]

1 hour ago, RELS said:

 

I think 5pm ET would be the best for most customers in the English speaking world: 2pm PT, 10pm UK, and 7am Sydney

 

Mike, please take this suggestion under consideration.
It is orders of magnitude better than 7am ET. 

[Mike Moore]

4 minutes ago, labonnevie said:

That happened to me this Saturday. No big deal, I just came back three hours later. 
I hope Regent realizes that 7 am is 4 am in the west!

That is frankly unacceptable! Regent has a lot of customers in our time zone. 
A far better solution, and a better customer oriented one, would be to have the Regent IT people do their thing starting at midnight eastern time. 

Unfortunately the IT window can't move, because our UK office is too close top opening Sunday morning at that time.

 

Regarding your other suggestion, due to other reasons beyond my control, we can't currently use any time between 8am - 6pm ET. I'm hoping that changes at some point next year, but for now it isn't possible.

[labonnevie]

6 pm ET would still be vastly better than 7 am.
11 pm in UK would be easier on those guests than 4 am for western time zone guests. 

[rcandkc]

I would even prefer the old midnight ET than 7am ET. 

[Trunkabella]

It would be interesting to know the geographic profile of frequent Regent cruisers.  Are there more cruisers in the US West versus UK/Europe.  It would seem like it would be better to make it more convenient for the majority.

[Brownie54]

9 hours ago, flossie009 said:

Much more convenient for those of us in Europe.

Thanks Mike 🙂

 

[Brownie54]

Sorry, didn’t mean to quote that last post.

 Mike, thank you so much for letting us know. It’s not the best time for everyone, but I think we understand the reasons.

 

Sue

[cruiseluv]

6 hours ago, labonnevie said:

Mike, please take this suggestion under consideration.
It is orders of magnitude better than 7am ET. 

Yes please, this new time is pretty bad except it seems for a few

[papaflamingo]

It's all good..  Just grab a drink in whatever time zone you are in and enjoy the excitement of your upcoming cruise.  After all, as Jimmy Buffett says,: 

[2012_Alaska_bound]

Unfortunately, no matter what time is chosen, it will be inconvenient for someone in our Global Society!

Good job coming up with 5 p.m. EDT though, @RELS!

[irishwitchy]

Well, I have something to reserve on Aug 23 coming up.  I will not be in NJ where the old time or new time is fine with me.   I will be Hawaii,  so now I have no idea if I need to be free at 2:00pm in the afternoon or 1:00am!  I’m hoping the change goes in after Aug 23!  Thanks for the heads up!  

[pkay1]

On 8/14/2023 at 5:31 AM, Mike Moore said:

Good morning CC community! Just a quick update that in the next few weeks we're going to be moving the time that reservations open for shore excursions and dining reservations from 8pm EDT to 7am EDT, 13 hours earlier than they are now. We send out an email the day before advising of this change, so look for that message and double check you booking the evening before your reservations become available to avoid disappointment, and apologies for the inconvenience.

@Mike Moore this stinks for anyone living on the west coast(PDT)! 4:00am? Guess it's going to be an early morning for me this coming Sunday!

[flossie009]

Having had an inconvenient time in Europe for reservations for some time we have never bothered to try to book immediately the window opens …………. but we have always got the excursions and dining times that we wanted.

 

[douginct]

I am US East Coast - all that time it was midnight Eastern time, we never stayed up to book at midnight. Always got up in the morning (at 6 or 7 AM) and booked then. Had no issues - both excursions and dining.  Maybe a couple of our first choice dining times were taken, but there were plenty to choose from.

[Mike Moore]

8 hours ago, pkay1 said:

@Mike Moore this stinks for anyone living on the west coast(PDT)! 4:00am? Guess it's going to be an early morning for me this coming Sunday!

This change is not going in effect until after Sunday, so you will still be doing you reservations at 8pm ET.

[mj_holiday]

In the past I have never bothered to try to get reservations the first night they open up, and have been able to get what we wanted, sometimes with a wait list, but still got them.

[Gray Lady]

We were caught earlier this year in an off-line maintenance scenario while trying to book shore excursions. I know 4 AM is inconvenient, but has no one else gotten up early to check-in on Southwest or purchase something when it goes live at a weird time (Prime Day, maybe)? West Coast has benefits for some things, like NFL football start times, and not for others. It is only two times that one needs to wake up early, if so inclined, to make reservations for dining or excursions. Myself, I prefer to wake up early rather than face the frustration of trying to book something and then being unable to due to maintenance issues. Thank you, Mike Moore, for making the change. 

[pkay1]

3 hours ago, Mike Moore said:

This change is not going in effect until after Sunday, so you will still be doing you reservations at 8pm ET.

Thanks for letting me know! DH and I are celebrating our anniversary on our trip in November, so we really have our heart set on eating at one particular restaurant that night.

[rcandkc]

I still think the new time is very inconvenient for most of the US travelers.  There had to be other options or the IT maintenance people are being very rigid.

[DaveFr]

48 minutes ago, rcandkc said:

I still think the new time is very inconvenient for most of the US travelers.  There had to be other options or the IT maintenance people are being very rigid.

I agree completely. The best option I saw on this thread was to change the start time to 6 pm ET and to move the IT window to midnight ET. Mike noted that the IT window could not be moved because it would be too close to the Sunday opening hours of the UK office.

 

If feasible, an easy solution would be to change the Sunday opening hours of the UK office to accommodate an IT window beginning at midnight ET. So we would have a once weekly change in UK office hours versus inconveniencing a substantial number of US and Canadien passengers every day of the week. Favoring the UK office over the majority of passengers on Regent seems very unfair to me.

 

Dave

Edited August 17, 2023 by DaveFr

[flossie009]

2 hours ago, DaveFr said:

Mike noted that the IT window could not be moved because it would be too close to the Sunday opening hours of the UK office.

The Regent U.K. office does not open on Sundays 🤨 🤔

 

[DaveFr]

6 minutes ago, flossie009 said:

The Regent U.K. office does not open on Sundays 🤨 🤔

 

I wondered about that since the US office is not open on Sundays either. Perhaps both offices are just not open to the public on those days, but are still operational for cruise business. Hopefully Mike will clarify.
 

Dave

[labonnevie]

2 hours ago, flossie009 said:

The Regent U.K. office does not open on Sundays 🤨 🤔

 

Mike, given this information, could you please review the suggestions made on this thread?

Thank you 

[RELS]

3 minutes ago, labonnevie said:

Mike, given this information, could you please review the suggestions made on this thread?

Thank you 

 

I think that Mike has heard us loud and clear. I am sure he'll bring our concerns to TPTB. If the change (we don't like) is already in the works, backing it out will be unlikely for now. Web development just don't work like that. We'll just have to live with things for now, and trust that a better solution is coming with a future revision. Mike knows our wishes, and he's proven that he's responsive to customer issues raised in in this forum.

 

Thanks, Mike 🙂!